As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As processors, graphics cards, random access memory (RAM) and other components in information handling systems have increased in clock speed and power consumption, the amount of heat produced by such components as a side-effect of normal operation has also increased. Often, the temperatures of these components need to be kept within a reasonable range to prevent overheating, instability, malfunction and damage leading to a shortened component lifespan. Accordingly, thermal management systems including air movers (e.g., cooling fans and blowers) have often been used in information handling systems to cool information handling systems and their components. Various input parameters to a thermal management system, such as measurements from temperature sensors and inventories of information handling system components are often utilized by thermal management systems to control air movers and/or throttle power consumption of components in order to provide adequate cooling of components.
By their very nature of being mechanical devices, air movers may generate sound, the level of sound being a function of the speed at which the air mover is rotating. For example, at high rotational speeds, an air mover may generate high levels of sound which may be unsuitable for some environments (e.g., an office setting) while being suitable for other environments (e.g., a data center filled with many information handling systems). As another example, changes in sound levels due to changes in fan speed in response to thermal control needs of an information handling system may also be undesirable, as changes in an ambient sound level may be distracting in some environments.
Thus, a need exists for users to intelligently control acoustical output of air movers while also maintaining adequate cooling capability. However, users may not often know how acoustical features correlate with a usage environment (e.g., as may be the case where an administrator provisions information handling systems for use at a remote office) and may not often know how system designers set tradeoffs between acoustics and thermal control responses based on presumed usage models. Furthermore, an actual usage environment may differ from assumptions applied in design of a system. Thus, to maintain a desired level of noise from a cooling system while maintaining an adequate level of cooling, a user may need to apply significant trial and error to achieve optimum settings.